I’m doing a series of blog posts on my recent trip to Japan, over the Christmas holidays. Why? One: I miss travel blogging, and I realized recently there was nothing stopping me from doing it, beyond inertia and just sort of forgetting to. Two: Perhaps someone on the Internet will find this travel advice useful, […]
Author: Faine Greenwood
Travel in Sicily: The Archaeological Park of Siracusa
The Sicilian city of Siracusa used to be known as Syracuse, and that’s the name you’ve probably seen if you’ve ever read ancient history or sat through a class on the ancient Greeks. This ancient city was the birthplace of Archimedes, hosted first-run plays by Sophocles, and was the site of some of the more […]
Consumer Drones Are Propaganda Tools, Not Killing Machines
I wrote for Foreign Policy about how consumer drones are much better at terrifying people than they are at killing them – and why it is important that we recognize this.Read it here. “The camera shook with the sound of an explosion and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro looked up, confused. Guards swiftly surrounded him with […]
Two “Free Speech” Rallies in Boston in July 2017: What I Saw
Supposedly Boston is known for free speech: the sort that leads to epoch-altering revolutionary wars, fancy tea getting dumped in harbors, and the occasional massacre. Perhaps that is why the organizers of this summer’s two Boston “free speech” rallies chose a notoriously Democrat-leaning city as their venue. Perhaps it’s because organizer Daniel Medlar is an […]
Why Don’t Supermarket Cucumbers Have Spines Anymore?
“Isn’t it weird how cucumbers don’t have spikes on them anymore?” my partner asked me. “Cucumbers don’t have spikes,” I said, as I picked up a cucumber from the vegetable display at Whole Foods. “Cucumber have never had spikes. I have never encountered a grocery-store cucumber with spikes” “They do,” he insisted. “ Well, they […]
Unsettling Children’s Books of My Youth: “Kickle Snifters and Other Fearsome Critters”
When I was very young, my mother’s uncle from Kentucky convinced me that there were long-fingered creatures that lived in the dark in closets. They were called, he told me with great seriousness, garments, and they were definitely real. For years afterward, I would open closets and wonder if there really was some sort of […]
You Don’t Want to Delete Your Facebook (And That’s OK)
Everyone should stop Facebook. Everyone is not going to stop using Facebook this week. That’s OK. There’s a middle ground between deleting your account forever and between spending all of your waking, earthly hours refreshing your Facebook feed. And we should be telling our relatives and friends about that middle ground, instead of telling them they have […]
Why Young People Live in Big Cities, Since This Needs to Be Explained Somehow
“I just don’t understand why you young people complain about high rent in the city – you could just move to the Midwest and buy a big house, if you’d get over yourselves.” You’ve heard this argument before if you live in a city. It is usually delivered by some horrible relative who is holding […]
FashMaps: Locating White Supremacists in Space
Are you worried that your neighbors are actually Nazis? Do yowling white men in polo shirts with suspect haircuts continue to hide from you, no matter how carefully you scrutinize your neighborhood? Seek no further. There is now “Fashmaps,” an activist-run website that uses public web postings to figure out where white supremacists claim to […]
Why You Should Go to Sicily
I drove around Sicily back in October. I had a business trip in Rome, and I had this general impression that I should go somewhere. Somewhere warm, because I live in Boston and Boston winters are a cruel meteorological joke, and October is when I start wondering if this winter will be the one that […]